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It's been an incredibly busy couple of days. Thursday, I drove into Toronto to visit with

kores_rabbit. She showed me Tenacious D episodes! Later, we hooked up with

commanderteddog for an evening of fish and chips and MST3K.

Teddog brought us to "The Olde Yorke," the best fish and chip place I've been to in ages, despite the silly olde timey name. I helpfully smashed her camera and threw it into pocket dimension.

We then ventured to the Mystery Loblaw's and loaded up on comestibles for the evening. We watched a Robot Chicken Star Wars DVD ("Gentlemen! Good manners are their own reward!"), and Teddog received a phone call from

mbehemoth, who was in the neighbourhood with his wife for her birthday dinner.

Teddog invited them over, and shortly after we were also joined by

kores_rabbit's husband, Jonathan. We all watched the MST3K version of Santa Claus.

kores_rabbit making an extremely obscure MST3K joke, and it's not "I'm your biggest fan."

I finally got home after midnight, and rose early to get

velvetpage and the girls to their respective "last day of school" events. I think I was in the house for all of 45 minutes between 8 AM and 4 PM. Claire and I visited Elizabeth at school for her class party. The evening held Claire's Christmas recital, which took place at my old high school, and

ruiskafleck's birthday party...

Ah, Delta Secondary! 585th best high school in all Ontario!

Dark polished wood and photos of the Queen!

The student newpaper moved into this office when I was in 9th grade, in an unlit hallway off the auditorium. I moved the filing cabinets up stairs, because I was Strong Like Bull! We left the tiny printing press behind in the old basement office, and switched to photocopies, and did layout with penknife and typewritten articles. By 12th grade, the newspaper was being put together on a Mac and run off on a laser printer. The new office was kiddy corner to a locked toilet. The one time I ventured into the washroom (I had a bunch of keys at one point, in my brief tenure as "acting editor"), I found the fixtures inside were covered with fossilized poop, and the mirror was smashed.

Claire, refusing to smile for her photo.

She was excellent on stage, and was very happy to see Santa, though she was a bit confused when she realized it wasn't my dad.

Class of '92 student council, featuring several friends, some of whom I'd totally forgotten about. High school was a blur of gaming, scholastic mediocrity, and social awkardness for me, though I must admit that university was even more of a blur.

We got home just in time to get the girls to bed. Once the sitter arrived, we ventured out to the next event...

ruiskafleck's birthday party! It was excellent to see their "Toronto" crowd again. Not since Geeksgiving has there been such a gathering of shiny people under one roof.